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Why Lead with B2B Video Content?

July 20, 2020

Five ways for B2B businesses to engage buyers with video marketing

While we are all longing for in person interactions, computer and phone screens are likely to continue to be the only connection between us for quite some time. If you have not done so yet, it is time to examine how videos can help you reach a wider audience and engage buyers. 

According to Marketo, videos overwhelmingly dominate the B2B decision making process:

  • 72% of B2B buyers are watching videos to help them make their buying decisions.
  • 83% of marketers report that video is becoming a more important channel for driving business results today.
  • 59% of marketers report that video converts better than any other type of content across their marketing mix.
  • 80% of the world’s traffic will be video by 2021.

Here are five ways your B2B business can leverage video to engage buyers:

  1. YouTube and your company’s website are ideal channels for video distribution.

Pro Tips:  

  • Ensure that you make it seamless for visitors to find and watch your video content. Do not bury your videos under the difficult to navigate search directory across your website or in the library of your YouTube channel.
  • Add a primary call to action (CTA) to watch the video on your homepage to grab attention, get visitors to click play and prevent them from leaving your website too quickly.
  • Use YouTube to house top-of-funnel video content. The goal should be driving these viewers back to your website where you can track, convert and nurture them.

The best types of videos for this approach are brand-oriented videos that help create an affiliation between your audience and your values. Another successful approach is a demo video that walks the viewer through your solutions and the benefits they deliver. These videos should be accompanied by a compelling CTA, urging them to watch the content.

  1. LinkedIn is a growing channel for video sharing. Two out of three (66%) marketers plan to use video content on the platform in 2020, while 87% of LinkedIn video marketers say it’s been an effective channel for them. In addition to allowing video content to be uploaded right into the feed, it accommodates the embedding of shared links across hosting platforms. 

Pro Tips:

  • If you’re a marketing leader in your organization, start with recording your thought leadership content in video format and sharing it via this channel.
  • Help and encourage your employees to share their own expertise through industry trend analyses or market insights.
  1. Email marketing can be a powerful channel for your high-quality pieces of video content that are driving results for your business. Email with embedded videos can be part of a wider marketing automation campaign or incorporated into a one-to-one approach. Embedding videos will help them stay out – and increase views – since most organizations simply include a URL or a link inside marketing emails or in their employees’ signatures as a way to drive people to the videos they have created.

Pro Tip:

  • Embed the actual video thumbnail right inside your email editor to stand out from the crowd and catch viewers’ attention.
  1. Teaser videos are best for lead generation when a company is hosting a webinar, for example. This content can be gated in a format that once completed can give access to a downloadable mp4.

Pro Tip:

  • Use this approach for content like product demos, webinars and post-sale content. 
  1. Video personalization is a novel way to connect with your audience. This type of content – think mail merge meets video – is ideal when you are looking to drive attendees to an event. The recipient’s personal information is incorporated into the video asset in real time, which can be pulled from the data in your CMS. The final video can then be delivered through a website or an email marketing campaign.

This approach is one that converts extremely well, particularly, when you’re able to deliver it at scale, and ultimately track the specific engagement with the videos.

These are a few of the creative ways in which video can help provide impact as part of a business marketing strategy. It’s about taking measured risks, measured investments and ensuring that there is a return on those marketing investments based across every single touch point that you’re interacting with your audience today. And video is proving to be the golden nugget of the marketing mix.

TAGS: Manufacturing